Change your thinking, change your world! Warwickshire students reach potential through grit and determination!
The programme which involves 34 secondary schools from across the county has been commissioned by Warwickshire County Council and delivered by the charity Grit Breakthrough Programmes. As part of the programme students taking part were linked with a Grit trained life coach from the local community who met with their students fortnightly for up to six months. The project, which also included a five-day intensive personal development workshop, supported young people to radically change their thinking by transforming the negative and destructive beliefs and opinions they have about themselves and their lives.
80 Warwickshire students have benefitted from the programme so far, including Liam who in his own words explains “I was going off the rails.”
There were days when Liam didn’t go to school at all, just hung around the streets with a crowd of other young people getting involved in anti-social behaviour. Even when he was in school, he spent his time arguing with teachers, getting kicked out of lessons and fighting with other students.
Coaching was a revelation, Liam now had someone who in his own words “helped me get stuff off my chest.” Someone who spoke to him like an adult. But also, someone who “said it straight,” someone who cut through.
The intensive programme has made a massive difference to how Liam sees the world and his place in it. It made him question the decisions he was making, decisions about being late, about getting kicked out of lessons. It made him ask, “Do I really want this for my life?” He saw what he needed to change, what needed to change now.
He is staying focused. Already he’s studying hard to catch up on work he’s missed. “I’m writing pages instead of a sentence.”
He is starting to put his hand up in class, answer questions, get work done. “The teacher says I’ve done a u-turn.”
And at home, life has transformed. “Mum is really proud and happy.” They don’t argue anymore because, “there is nothing to argue about anymore.” It feels so good.
“Grit,” says Liam, “has been so influential. It has helped me so much to make better choices. I’d recommend it to anyone.”
Continue read here.
Written Statement of Action
Following approval by Ofsted and CQC in January of our Written Statement of Action, delivery is now well underway all areas over the next 18 months:
- Autism waiting times and support for families: Additional investment of over £2.5m/year ongoing and £5.4m one off is helping to increase capacity for diagnosis and additional support. Work underway includes recruitment of neurodevelopmental posts, improving the self-help offer, planning an Autism conference in April in Warwick (and a conference in Nuneaton later in the year), and redesigning community support services. A gap analysis for speech and language services starts in February and a skills audit of Rise & CYP mental health services starts in April.
- Communication and engagement with parent carers: A programme of events is underway including monthly webinars - the last event was on the Graduated Approach. There's also a monthly SEND newsletter https://mailchi.mp/warwickshire/warwickshire-send-feb22 and Local Offer Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/WarksLocalOffer Restorative Practice training has been delivered to nearly 100 staff (and is also available for schools), and a forum for young people with SEND is being set up. To register to be involved visit: www.warwickshire.gov.uk/ypvoice
- Inclusion in schools: Thanks to the 17 schools in Rugby who are helping test out a new approach to help meet needs of children and young people with SEND in mainstream schools. So far, staff have received training & are carrying out whole school SEND Audits (online) with peer-to-peer review and support. Targeted training and support will follow next. The learning from this trial will be used to roll out support inclusion across all mainstream schools, with the support of 'change champions'. Please email schoolimprovement@warwickshire.gov.uk to nominate a change champion for your school.
- Workforce development: Four Head Teachers from across the county are part of a Working Group with partners from education, social care, health and parent carers to develop a programme of support to improve the knowledge, skills and understanding of staff in mainstream schools. The aim is to increase the confidence of staff in meeting the needs of children and young people with SEND, which will in turn increase the confidence of parents and carers and improve outcomes. We are also working with the NASEN Whole School SEND team and they have free training and resources online so please consider signing up: https://www.sendgateway.org.uk/
- Local Offer webpages: The new local offer webpages were launched in October 2021 and visits to the site have increased by 50%. Briefing sessions are being delivered to professionals and coffee mornings in our communities.
Please email Rachel Barnes, Change Delivery Manager at WCC for more information on any areas of the Written Statement of Action at sendchange@warwickshire.gov.uk
If any parent carers who would like to find out more about Warwickshire Parent Carer Voice (our local Parent Carer Forum for SEND) then please email the chair, Elaine Lambe: warwickshireparentcarervoice@gmail.com